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Valve just released a tiny SteamOS 3.6.22 "Volcanic Activity" Beta for Steam Deck, which includes a fix for a rather annoying issue. Read the full article here: [Hidden Content] View the full article

The playoffs of LTA Season one concluded on Feb. 23 with Team Liquid hoisting the trophy. However, the viewership for the grand final was surprisingly low, raising concerns for the future of the new League of Legends competition. The grand final peaked at only 168,852 online viewers, according to Esports Charts. More surprisingly, it wasn’t even the most popular series of the whole event. That title belongs to the clash between Cloud9 and LOUD in the quarterfinals, which amassed 291,301 viewers. Still, such low viewership numbers are worrying, and fans agree. View the full article

If you noticed an odd bug in Destiny 2 recently, don't worry about it, because Bungie isn't fixing it on purpose. Read more View the full article

Goichi 'Suda51' Suda - creator of No More Heroes - and Hidetaka 'Swery' Suehiro - creator of Deadly Premonition - are bringing their pseudonyms and reliably weird development sensibilities to a new joint project. It's called Hotel Barcelona, and it's a horror title inspired by the likes of PlayStation 2 classic Siren and David ****** works like Twin Peaks. It's all a bit "fuzzy, in the air right now," according to the panel the two appeared on (via Nibel on Twitter), but the plan is to build this as a sort of indie title. It'll be small-scale enough that it might hit mobile in addition to other platforms, and the developers have been in talks with Devolver Digital to build the game at a budget of $1 million USD. Except Devolver says on Twitter that "this is news to us," and follows up with "gonna need Suda51 and Swery to pitch us this mysterious game we're supposedly publishing. Name a time and place, gentlemen." We asked the publisher directly what exactly is going on, and got back, simply, "as suspected, Devolver has never heard of it." Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: The most divisive horror game ever is yours for less than $2 right now Yes, Deadly Premonition is still as weird as a Game Boy game Deadly Premonition: The Board Game exceeds funding target in eight hours View the full article

Is Monster Hunter Wilds Steam Deck compatible? Valve's handheld struggled to run Monster Hunter Wilds during beta phases and, given that the recently released benchmark tool isn't offering any hope of optimized performance, all signs suggest this is one game that isn't suited to the Steam Deck. The Monster Hunter Wilds system requirements are notable for requiring upscaling to be used to hit 60fps at 1080p, even if you meet the minimum demands. This leaves the Steam Deck in a tricky spot, as the smaller base screen resolution and a forced reliance on AMD FSR means a combination of great performance and visuals may be a pipe dream, for now. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Monster Hunter Wilds review - a worthy successor to World Monster Hunter Wilds' director wants to let players discover its best tricks Monster Hunter Wilds beta start and end times View the full article

Note: This update is for the Steam Deck Beta and Preview channels, and includes new features that are still being tested. You can opt into this in Settings > System > System Update Channel. General Fixed a recent regression where pre-compiled shaders wouldn't be downloaded. View the full article

Spongebob Tower Defense on Roblox features many units for you to unlock, but which ones offer the best stats for you to use to sail through Chapters? Spongebob Tower Defense offers 65 units after Update 8, including the three starters for you to choose from. Each unit has a rarity of Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Limited, Mythic, or Secret. View the full article

Mecha Break, the mecha-driven battler from Amazing Seasun Games, had a historic weekend. Its newest round of open beta play went live on February 23, and saw player counts reach high enough that it even momentarily overcame the likes of Marvel Rivals. As spotted by PCGamesN, the player count on Steam for the new Mecha Break Demo launched up and over NetEase's Marvel hero shooter, reaching over 317,000 concurrent players on Steam. As of this writing, the demo has reached an all-time peak of 317,522 on Valve's platform (per SteamDB), with a 24-hour peak of 303,991. Concurrents are fickle though, as Marvel Rivals quickly took back its spot, hitting a 344,535 player-count peak in the last 24 hours (via SteamDB). Still, making Marvel Rivals sweat is a pretty big achievement for an open beta. It wasn't all sunshine, though. The huge influx of pilots into Mecha Break's hangars apparently caused distress on the servers, resulting in some disconnects and other issues. Amazing Seasun has already responded to Mecha Break players frustrated with the server issues, promising three batches of "Ultimate Maintenance Box" gifts delivered through in-game mail. Those server issues seem like they could be a contributing factor to the demo's current 'Mostly Negative' rating on Steam, where users also cite the anti-cheat measures and monetization concerns. Either way, it looks like Mecha Break is one to watch moving forward. Our own hands-on with Mecha Break back in August had similar takeaways, contrasting compelling mecha combat with concerns over out-of-game structures. We'll see if Mecha Break can keep up momentum, and appease naysayers in the process, on its way towards a launch sometime this year. Eric is a freelance writer for IGN. View the full article

This week, Destructoid is made possible by Boot Hill Bounties, a throwback RPG in the style of 16-bit classics like Chrono Trigger and EarthBound. Gather your party and head out on a massive, spaghetti western adventure, now available on Nintendo Switch and Steam. This is a sponsored post. In honor of the Switch release of Boot Hill Bounties, we're taking our hats off to games developed by a single person - or, at least, mostly by a single person. From Papers, Please to Stardew Valley, we have seven games that show just how far the determination of a developer can go. Games are rarely brought to market by a single person, though, so keep that in mind as we make our way through. For instance, Boot Hill Bounties developer David Welch received help from chip-tune extraordinaire Jake Kaufman on the game's soundtrack, whose credits include Shovel Knight, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, and DuckTales: Remastered. The Challenges of Solo Game Development Video games are challenging to design. Drafting the story, programming gameplay systems, creating art assets, and recording sound effects and voices are just a few of the many pieces in the game-design puzzle box. It's an arduous process, and even game publishers with teams numbering in the hundreds and access to millions of dollars in funding have produced terrible games. So imagine how difficult it must be for one person to make a game with little to no outside help. Without access to the same wealth of resources big-name game publishers have, solo game developers have to face all the challenges of designing a functional and fun game alone. Luckily, the best one-person game dev teams make up for their lack of resources with indomitable enthusiasm and a willingness to seek out the knowledge and support they need to make their dreams a reality. How Solo Developers Overcame Development Hurdles Many of the games we've listed below were made by people willing to play the long game. They took years, even decades, to learn the skills that helped them reach their goals. Some studied programming in college, while others used self-tutoring courses like Codecademy to teach themselves how to turn strings of numbers on a computer screen into virtual experiences loved by millions of players. Of course, gaining experience won't make it easier to pay the bills that inevitably come in during the game design process. One way solo game developers have gotten around this hurdle is through crowd-funding. The rise of crowd-funding platforms like Patreon, Ko-fi, and Kickstarter has made it easier for developers to get the funding they need to bring their games to life. That said, every video game begins with a good idea, and the ability to convince people that your idea is worth betting on is an essential skill in any indie developer's toolkit. This is why many indie dev teams work to create a social media presence, building a solid rapport with their potential fanbase. Some devs do this better than others, but the gaming public generally appreciates the effort. Now that the preamble out of the way, let's check out some of the greatest success stories in indie gaming. Boot Hill Bounties – David Welch Boot Hill Bounties takes the tried-and-true formula of 16-bit era JRPGs and brings it into a whole new setting. It's an isometric RPG with up to 4-player co-op in the style of Final Fantasy III/VI and EarthBound. However, it ditches the high fantasy setting, favoring a Wild West spin. Boot Hill Bounties came out on Steam a few years ago, but it just recently released on Switch, and the classic RPG experience pairs perfectly with Nintendo's handheld. Even if you haven't played its prequel, Boot Hill Heroes, you can still play Bounties. Welch developed the game with past and new players in mind, allowing anyone to jump in on the spaghetti western action. Welch founded Experimental Game Studios to work on games that capture the same spark that made him fall in love with titles like Final Fantasy III/VI and Chrono Trigger. After releasing Boot Hill Heroes, Welch started the development of Boot Hill Bounties, eventually counting down to release day with 50 unique blog posts. These posts, colloquially known as the Corral Countdown, provide a rare glimpse behind the curtain of a solo game dev. When he looked back on the experience, Welch said, "The great thing about being a solo dev is that you can be proud knowing that the work is entirely your own, but that can also be scary." That's an impressive feat, given the breadth of content in Boot Hill Bounties. Undertale – Toby Fox Undertale comes from developer Toby Fox, who worked on the game alone outside of some art assets. Although Undertale was Fox's first claim to fame, he had been working on retro-inspired RPGs for some time. Growing up, he used RPG Maker 2000 to create games with his brothers, and he produced ROM hacks for EarthBound in high school. Following the tradition of weird, Fox went on to develop his own RPG, taking all of the conventions of 16-bit classics and flipping them on their head. Since then, Fox has released the start of another game, Deltarune, though most of his work is focused on composing now. He has composing credits on Little Town Hero, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, and Pokémon Sword and Shield. Stardew Valley – Eric Barone Stardew Valley was created by Eric Barone, who released the game under the alias "ConcernedApe." Originally intended as a way to bolster his resume, Barone set out to create a "fixed" Harvest Moon, feeling that the series had "gotten progressively worse after Harvest Moon: Back to Nature." What started as a side project to show what Barone was capable of quickly grew into something much *******. Although Stardew Valley is a very different game than Undertale and Boot Hill Bounties, Barone still cites the same references. Growing up, his older brother introduced him to Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, and EarthBound. Papers, Please – Lucas Pope Like David Welch, Lucas Pope is also the developer of two successful games (technically three, though one is a small, browser-based game). After working on Uncharted: Drake's Fortune and Uncharted 2, Pope split from his position as a systems programmer at Naughty Dog to pursue his own creative aspirations, using the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword" as his lighthouse. Pope and his wife, Keiko Ishizaka, used that phrase to develop Mightier before creating a mobile game and browser game. Their first commercially successful game, though, was Papers, Please, propelling Pope into indie dev stardom. Iconoclasts – Joakim Sandberg Joakim Sandberg, who develops his games under the name "Konjak," has actually released six games, though only one of them is still readily available to download. Iconoclasts debuted on Steam's Greenlight program in 2015, though the game had been in development far before that. All the way back in 2012, Sandberg was allowing players to try out an alpha demo. It wasn't until 2018 that the Metroidvania platformer hit virtual shelves. Pulling on his experience developing for the Game Boy Advance, Sandberg created a game that feels ripped straight out of the handheld's days, just with updated visuals. With his time at WayFoward, Sandberg worked on games like Contra IV and X-Men 3. Braid – Johnathan Blow Johnathan Blow has a long history in the video games industry, though not one directly working on games. After porting Doom to a set-top box, Blow founded a game studio in 1996, which went bust a few years later. With assets at the ready, Blow worked with IBM to turn the game he and his team created into a demo for the Cell processor, the computing unit featured in the PlayStation 3. Although the demo was successful, the full game was not. Blow found himself in Thailand in 2004, $40,000 in debt with a stroke of inspiration. He created a time manipulation puzzle platformer demo, which would eventually turn into Braid. Upon release, the game quickly became the starchild for indie titles on console, eventually funding Blow's next project, The Witness. Axiom Verge – Thomas Happ Axiom Verge started as a side project for Petroglyph Games engineer Thomas Happ. Petroglyph Games is best known for its work on real-time strategy games like Star Wars: Empire at War and Grey Goo. Starting in 2010, however, Happ began work on Axiom Verge, hoping to release it that same year. It wouldn't be until 2015 that the game would see the light of day, though. Instead of just a small homage to Metroid, Axiom Verge turned into a true spiritual successor. Following the release on PC in 2015, the game has since been ported to countless other systems, including the Switch, Wii U, Vita, and PlayStation 4. The post The best games developed by a single person appeared first on Destructoid. View the full article

Exoborne, the third-person extraction shooter from Sharkmob, has just released a bunch of stats from its closed playtest. It turns out that players went wild on it over the five days it was available, clocking over 500,000 matches and extracting with over $7 billion in loot. Read more View the full article

With the free Tales of Agrabah update coming to Disney Dreamlight Valley on February 26th, preparations should be underway if you don't want to delay access to any of the features. While there's no way to know what exactly will be required to access and max out the new characters, there are a couple of ways to ensure you're prepared no matter what. View the full article

NetherRealm has published the first gameplay for Mortal Kombat 1 DLC guest fighter the T-1000. The T-1000 teaser trailer, which is viewable below, includes a look at one of the character’s fatalities, which is inspired by one of the chase scenes in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. It also confirms that Madam Bo will join the game as a DLC Kameo fighter. Read More... View the full article

I’m a bit late to the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti, which means that this review – while already a dismal failure in the glowing robot eyes of the Internet nowness machine – can at least factor in the context of the GPU’s first few days on *****. Said context can be summarised thusly: Ah. Umm. Errrrrrrr. No, early life has not been kind to the RTX 5070 Ti. Inadequate stocks and the lack of an Nvidia-made Founders Edition, unlike those of the RTX 5090 and RTX 5080, have cut the chances of finding one at the intended £729 / $749 RRP to pretty much nada. Not to mention how some models are shipping with missing render output units, potentially hurting performance. It’s a saddening start, made all the more unfortunate by the fact that the RTX 5070 Ti really isn’t a bad graphics card in itself. Read more View the full article

Tempest Rising is always going to be compared to Command and Conquer. It's set in the '90s, Frank Klepacki does the music, and there are two campaigns where you play as two different factions. Even the finer details, like the talking head cutscenes, and the fact that the Tempest itself is an energy-rich, alien-esque crystal, just like Tiberium - I can imagine the pitch meeting where somebody said 'Westwood and EA aren't making Command and Conquer anymore, so we're going to do it'. But Slipgate's RTS game is way more than an homage; it's not just Command and Conquer for a post Command and Conquer world. Available to play right now, Tempest Rising has the potential to rise higher than its influences. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Tempest Rising, the spiritual successor to Command and Conquer, gets a PvP demo Command and Conquer inspired RTS Tempest Rising gets early 2025 release date Command and Conquer spiritual sequel Tempest Rising opens new beta signups View the full article

In yet more troubling Nvidia news, an owner of a new Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 has reported that their graphics card set itself on fire. According to the owner, their Asus ROG Astral RTX 5090, a card with a $2,799 price tag, completely burned out after an afternoon of gaming, destroying the graphics card and damaging the motherboard in the process. This incident is yet another power-related issue for Nvidia to investigate with its new graphics cards. While the RTX 5090 is now the best graphics card you can buy, its launch hasn't been smooth sailing, with extremely low stock availability and problems with melting power cables leaving the company in a difficult position. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Save an incredible $200 on this Asus ROG Ally gaming handheld, while stocks last Asus' new portable Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 is coming, but it won't be cheap Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 and 5080 GPU prices are already rising View the full article For verified travel tips and real support, visit: [Hidden Content]

Among the bravest risks a game can take is making you play an *********. Afterlove EP's Rama isn't an *********, but he's getting there. He's a grieving indie rockstar who has fallen into self-neglect and hermitude - a gloom-sodden, guitar-cradling burden on friends who believe in and care for him, despite it all. As the player of this visual novel with a pinch of rhythm game, you are essentially one of those long-suffering friends. Your job is to help Rama escape his own labyrinth of bereavement, self-pity and tortured creativity. Your ally and enemy in this is Cinta, Rama's dead girlfriend, who is now a persistent voice in his head. She's his better self, sometimes, and at others, the voice of anguish and fear dragging him deeper into purgatory. I like Afterlove EP's deft writing, and enjoy its splendid and specific recreation of 21st century Jakarta. I also feel for developers Pikselnesia, who have made a game about grief while processing the loss of their own creative director, Coffee Talk creator Mohammad Fahmi. But I do not much like being Rama's friend, at this particular moment in his life. And by extension, I did not enjoy a lot of Afterlove EP, much as I admire it. Read more View the full article

A prominent Fortnite leaker has claimed that players will soon be able to purchase the reboot cards of fallen teammates for gold at one of the game's many reboot vans. Fortnite is constantly bringing new features to the popular battle royale, which helps to keep the game feeling fresh. View the full article

Between PC and mobile, the Epic Games Store is currently giving away four free games for users to add to their digital libraries. Every Thursday at 10:00am CST, the Epic Games Store gives away new free games for PC gamers to add to snag. And since the company has started to more aggressively pursue the mobile gaming market, it has started to give away free games for Android and iOS as well. View the full article

Once Human developer Starry Studio has finally revealed the release date for permanent servers; something that the community has been asking about for quite some time. You've not got long to wait either, as starting March 2025 every single server in the game (apart from private ones) will be converted into an indefinite one, with the new feature being expanded later in the year as well. So if you've been itching to stick to a specific server, there's a lot you need to know. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Once Human codes and how to redeem Survival game Once Human adds a new instrument and another seasonal event All Once Human Twitch drops and how to claim View the full article

Inferno is an ultimate unit on the battlefield, armed with close-range splitters and multiple long-range plasma beams. Unlike most Strikers in Mecha BREAK that you can buy for Matrix Credit, Inferno is available exclusively through Matrix Contract. If you want this ultra-heavy attacker, prepare for a grind, as Inferno isn’t as easy to unlock. Here’s how to get Inferno in Mecha BREAK. View the full article

Skyblivion, the fan-made remake of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion inside the engine of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is on track for a 2025 release. The mod team reaffirmed its launch goals in a new developer update stream, showcasing some of the work done so far. Put together by a team of volunteer developers, Skyblivion is essentially a AAA-scale modding endeavor, which has taken years of its makers' time and energy. Despite that, 2025 has been the target, and with its new stream, the Skyblivion team reaffirmed a 2025 release at the latest. "We hope with your support to finish the final steps in completing our dream, maybe even beating our own estimation." Calling it just a one-to-one remake might be underselling the work done here, though. The developers behind Skyblivion are also working on overhauling various areas of the original Elder Scrolls title. The work ranges from ensuring "unique items are actually unique" to helping existing bosses in Oblivion live up to their reputation a bit more, noting Mannimarco as one in particular. The team included the infamous "A Brush with Death" quest in their livestream, and the painted world looks fantastic. All of this would be fascinating in its own right, but there's an extra wrinkle: the long-rumored, official remake of Oblivion. Alleged details of an Oblivion remake surfaced earlier this year, outlining changes that could be made to combat and more. Microsoft declined to comment on the matter to IGN. Even in 2023, an Oblivion remaster was spotted in documents accidentally published during the Activision Blizzard/FTC trial. Some of those games, like an Indiana Jones project, have since been released; others, like the Oblivion remaster and a Fallout 3 remaster, have yet to be confirmed. If Microsoft and Bethesda are looking to relaunch Oblivion in some way, an extensive fan mod like this could find itself in the crosshairs. Bethesda's games have long enjoyed a healthy modding base, from older titles up through Starfield. Hopefully this project doesn't hit rough waters right before launch, as Fallout London did. Eric is a freelance writer for IGN. View the full article

Dave Bautista would really like to be in that upcoming Gears of War Netflix movie, and he's asked all of us to help him out. Read more View the full article

Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 has a wealth of content spread across two maps in 15th-century Bohemia. Once the Trosky part of the main quest line comes to an end, you will enter the Kuttenberg region with a variety of new sidequests to partake in. One of the trickier side quests to find is Under the Straw Hat. Here is how you can start and finish this particular side quest. Table of contentsHow to start Under the Straw Hat in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2How to complete Under the Straw Hat in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 How to start Under the Straw Hat in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 You will find the quest here. Screenshot by Dot Esports Under the Straw Hat is a side quest you can find when you make it past the main city of Kuttenberg in Kingdom Come Deliverance 2. The quest location can be found outside Kuttenberg when you take the northern exit and ride north. After you pass a couple of crossroads, you should come across a vineyard with a cross outside it. The exact map location is pictured above. View the full article

The Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves open beta has been cracked, allowing those with the game and some naughty software to bypass the game's intended settings and access features and content otherwise locked away. This includes a training mode, which folks have been using to train before they're meant to. Read more View the full article

The early hours of Monster Hunter Wilds are spent in the more muted colors of its 'Fallow' season. As I choose my starting weapon and the early hunts kickstart that specific flood of endorphins only Capcom's flagship RPG can bring, I can't help but start to miss the brighter tones of World and Rise. But then comes the 'Inclemency' - in this case, a raging sandstorm that floods the desert accompanied by vicious lightning strikes. Then, midway through my tussle with a giant Alpha Doshaguma, the storm clears as quickly as it came, and the world bursts into vibrant, gorgeous life; the 'Plenty' has arrived. It's a stunning moment that is everything I dreamed of and more. In many ways, it feels like an allegory for Monster Hunter as a series. If you can push through the struggle of those early hours, and survive to the 'spark' of finding the weapon that clicks for you, you'll reveal something truly beautiful. Read the rest of the story... RELATED LINKS: Monster Hunter Wilds' director wants to let players discover its best tricks Monster Hunter Wilds beta start and end times All Monster Hunter Wilds monsters View the full article